How NOT To Be A Douche Bag Author 101

Hello, and welcome to a new segment on my blog: how you, a hapless author, can avoid being a total douche bag to the people you will meet along your publishing journey. The hope is to make this a weekly segment.

There are many, many ways in which an author can be a douche-bag. In the future, I'll have other editors, writers, and artists come on here and share some lessons with you.

Today, I want to talk about publishing divas.

Divas are the ones who think that everything revolves around them. THEIR book is the only one being published. THEIR emails must be answered immediately. I often receive, I kid you not, several emails a day from the same people asking me the same things that either a) are common sense, or b) I've already answered. Everything is my fault, and, by god, if I'm not available to hold their hand and solve their problems when they snap their fingers, they'll just take their toys and go home.

Who are the divas? Probably those big multi-published authors with a dozen best-selling books under their belts, right? The ones who make lots of money for the publishing house, and therefore are kind of justified in their diva attitudes?

Nope. Guess again.

Oh! It's those damn newbies, right? The people with their first book?

Sometimes, but not usually. I don't begrudge newbie questions, because everyone has to learn some way, and I try to communicate with the n00bs.

The diva tends to be an author with a book or two (or three) under his or her belt. Moderate sales, moderate fanbase, and suddenly, he or she is the center or the universe.

The difference between a diva and an experienced, professional, and often big name author is that the big authors have already figured out something important: the publishing staff doesn't exist to work for you, the author.

They exist to work WITH you.

They're your co-workers. The book is a product. They want to work with you to make it as good as it can be, but you have to remember, there are more of you than there are of them. They're working on several books, which also need their attention.

Divas don't get that. They order around the editors, artists, publicists, etc, like they're the help, because the author is Speshul.

These people are douche bags.

Don't be one.